PHOTOS CHENGDU
Sunday 15th July, 2007
We are in Chengdu
We got a mobile call today and we are permitted into Tibet --- Tommorrow. I am so happy.
Today I went to the Green Ram Temple - which is a Taoist temple - only 5 yuan to get in
(less than $1)
It was awesome - really different to other temples I have seen. Amazing landscaping.
I saw those visual representations that are in the book the I Ching.
Also there was a god of chaos or something - i thought that was cool.
Lots of ying & yang signs. I know when you think of China you think of
Ying and Yang and bonsai trees.
In Beijing I NEVER see ying and yang and bonsai - so its quite exciting
for me to see stuff that is not Beijing-like.
Starting to recognise the 8 immortals in Taoism.
I know there is one guy with a medicine bottle.
So I am not only holidaying but I am learning too.
The daoist place had this particular vibe. The qi perhaps?
You know those hexigrams that people put on their doors
in Australia for feng shui 风水 (air water) - well there was a building shaped like that.
This temple was not only a tourist site but an operating religious
shrine with people bowing and lighting incense.
The place smells great and the smoke and candles give it that atmosphere.
Plus I like the feeling that these sites are really important to people.
This particular site Laozi did something or met someone.
Now I am writing about the Green Ram Temple I realise there is nothing to say
you just have to see it. I can't give you a particular reasons why it is good.
http://www.travelpod.com/travel-photo/liciadventure/asia_2007/1195261200/chengdu2_076.jpg/tpod.html
Next up I went to Dufu's cottage. DuFu is a famous Chinese poet.
He wrote 250 poems at this site.
moon doors, bridges, lakes, lotus, orange fish, high ceiling dark wooden buildings,
very chilled but nothing particularly special and a rip off 60yuan ($10)
found dumplings (baozi) (bowzer) i was really hungry. had the following conversation.
what meat is in that?
meat is in that
what meat is in that?
meat is in that
I know but WHAT meat??
blank look
Is it pork?
no answer,
then the boss says in chinese, "just tell her its pork"
she doesnt but the other shop people do.
I was hungry I thought
stuff it I will pretend its pork then.
However, when I was eating it my mind
wondered to all the restaurants in
Chengdu which have plastic buckets
full of toads with a net over them
there yellow eyes looking through the net
I started to feel like -
I AM NEVER EATING OUTSIDE THE BACKPACKERS AGAIN
In Chengdu they do this alot
me: shenme rou? (what meat?)
shope assistant: rou (meat)
Im not adventurous.
I said once "this looks good" John said "dont order that, that is snake"
I have a new room mate in the dorm. He is French and seems cool. We might be
going to a reggae night tonight. Apparently it is really crazy there.
People are annoying me saying "laowai" and "waiguoren"
I hear it soooo many times per day.
Now I always go up and strike up a conversation with the person.
I want them to know I understand Chinese and I can
understand what they are saying about me.
They often try and guess where I am from.
I am sad to leave Chengdu. It has really grown on me.
It feels very tropical here.
It has influences from Tibet, South East Asia - ie Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam,
India. You can really see it.
Its not all red and gold like Beijing.
Plus there seems to be more religious here.
Every person is carrying a fan here. Constantly fanning themselves.
I used to think of Chinese fans as just an aesthetic thing
but no they are a necessity here.
Everyday is humid.
There is a kind of wildness here. Shirts off. Chaos.
Like the streets are exploding with people.
China is really free. People riding motorcycles with no helmet
Most taxis i get into there is no seat belt.
I feel like western countries feel too rigid and
strict.
There are so many positive things about China
and John and I often think
"why don't they do it like that in Australia
Australia and Western countries are so
uptight"
The Western media misrepresents China
as being really strict with guards everywhere.
The guards are really nice. The Western media
is soooo biased against China.
This is a bit like the Queensland of China.
Except that China has a lot of energy.
So this place is just the right amount of laid back
yet productive.
I also stumbled upon a market today.
Beautiful stuff.
Hand carved wooden chinese furniture etc.
I cannot believe the artistry in this country.
I am astounded and moved daily.
It just really lifts my spirits.
It makes me want to create.
LHASA
00000000000
TIBET 07
16th July, 2007
Today we arrived at Lhasa airport the temperature was 15 degrees celcius
- a bit different to the 38 degrees of Chengdu.
A big difference considering Lhasa is only 1100 km from Chengdu. (the same difference as Sydney and Noosa).
Flying in I could see snow capped mountains and endless sky.
I know you have probably all seen the tourist guides with the mountainous terrain around Tibet.
Its not the same as seeing it. It is just magnificient a photo can't capture it.
We caught the coach from the airport. Beautiful views of perfect blue skies reflected in the water.
Rough looking landscapes and green mountains. Tibetan writing carved into stones and Tibetan
prayer flags flying in the wind.
At the airport I saw people wearing ethnic weaved costumes. Just everday people catching taxis or
meeting their families - not like a fake tourist display.
Many passengers from our plane exited the airport wearing white silk scarves. I dont know
what this means -- Chinese, Westerners and Japanese ?? A Buddhist thing?????
Seeing Tibet is so mountainous I thought we may be winding through mountains.
However, this rarely happens in China. In China they just dig a tunnel through the mountain
this is great because I suffer from travel sickness. I dont get sick in China because all the roads
are straight they either build a tunnel or a bridge. they have the manpower to do this.
Before we got to the bus station the bus went past the Potala Palace.
This is where all the
At the bus station a Chinese guy approached us and showed us some hotels.
We managed to get a cheap hotel because we really were prepared to
search and search in order to get the cheapest hotel as possible.
We probably could not get this room if we did not speak Chinese.
No it would have been impossible. Its a bit run down but right near the main
street of Lhasa 'Beijing East Street". I can see the Potala palace from my hotel room.
Its kinda refreshing not being in a backpackers.
Backpackers in China rip you off big time. Everything is so much more expensive than normal.
We have ignored all the tours and caught public transport and taxis.
Although without Chinese this would have been very difficult.
eg. we went and saw the pandas - 80yuan with the hostel
we paid - 17 yuan each sharing a cab and then a public bus back.
we probably could have done it for 2 yuan.
Also there is English everywhere at the backpackers.
ALL of them have a big poster of a pizza.
They give you knives and forks. Speak English
Play the red hot chill peppers. etc
Probably good - because yeah sometimes you need a break from China
but if I spent my whole time in them
I may as well be in Australia.
I meet a new Australian every day.
I do enjoy them because sometimes I neeed western food and to know what i am eating.
Okay so we found a great Joazi restaurant for lunch.
There is a variety of people living here. There are many Han Chinese people.
There are many beautiful dark faced people.
There are people wearing cow boy hats.
I have only seen about 5 monks all day wearing maroon robes.
There are people in ethnic minority dress.
Some of the ladies wear shady white hats. There hair in black plait.
There are some beautifullly dressed ethnic minority people
also very good looking.
They seem more fascinated with me than I am with them.
Many giggle at us as we walk by, or look a little bit longer.
I always see people looking at John and I.
They look curious.
People find it very curious if they hear us talking Chinese to another person.
Hanyu (majority Chinese language) is prolific in Lhasa.
The signs have both Tibetan and Chinese writing.
I hear Chinese being spoken more than any other.
Also Lhasa looks much like other cities in China.
The same chain stores.
Dicos - Chicken burgers
Yishion - Fashion
We have walked the block and I have seen more
consumerism than spirituality and culture.
I am not disapointed.
I read ages and ages ago that Tibet is very touristy.
So yeah, I wasn't expecting instant enlightenment.
But it doesn't seem touristy. They are more strict with the permits
so there are not many tourists.
The centre of town just seems quite ordinary.
Could be a commercial centre in Beijing.
But the people are interesting.
People twirling those prayer wheels.
There are paintings, carvings of the buddhist wheel of samarsara
and the buddhist knot.
Every direction you look at you can see blue skies and mountains.
The buildings are all 3 stories high.
There are some cool Tibetan architecture actually.
Like those boxy looking places with flat roofs.
Quite alot of beggers. But it is a very modern city.
After lunch I started to feel dizzy, no energy in my muscles
and really nauseas ---------- altitude sickness
We are at 3,600 metres altitude.
It feels different. Both or us are cognitively impaired
we forget simple things often. There is less oxygen here
we are closer to the sun, the uv feels strong.
I had to sleep. The hotelier said something like
a headache at the front of your head is okay
but at the back you go to hospital.
Every guide says the first day in Tibet should be a rest
getting used to the altitude.
John and I are goign to try and walk slowley and
take it easy while we are here.
We set out for dinner tonight and ate at a Tibetan restaurant.
It was soooo good. We had a potatoe dish with chilli and oinions.
A tomatoe dish and 3 coloured rice. They gave us hot yak milk ---
it was delicious and caramely. I am not very adventurous so usually i
would not drink that but I thought "what the heck, Im in Tibet"
Friendly locals chatted to us and outside two Chinese boys played
with plastic machine guns.
We are kinda of a little confused as to what language to speak.
We have learnt gabuche is thank you. (actually that is what we were told but later on we were told it means "penis")
Everyone here - Han looking or other speaks Chinese very clearly.
In Chengdu they were hard to understand.
But some people we are not really sure if they speak Chinese or not.
Anyway I am going to get a phrase book.
John doesn't know anything about Buddhism so I am able to be a bit
of a tour guide - "what does that mean?" I know a bit from my mum
and because I did a subject at uni "Psychology and Buddhism".
Also during the trip I am finding my uni course 'analyitical psychology' quite
useful in understanding the symbolism in temples all around China.
I read quite a lot about symbolism in that course. I also read about
Taoism so again I was a tour guide in Chengdu when it came
to taoist sites. Sometimes Chinese things remind me of European ideas.
It is amazing how universal everything is.
So hopefully we will have settled into the altitude tomorrow and we can do stuff.
No internet in hotel so email and blog might be a bit slow.
I feel good a lovely Tibetan meal in my tummy.
I felt really peaceful when I landed in Tibet (maybe the altitude??, maybe the enlightened beings??)
Now I just feel normal. But I will meditate while I am here and i will circumambulate some stupa's too.
Hopefully I can find a normal monastary not just relgious tourism.
okay keep you posted
17/7/07
Im in Lhasa
went and saw the old part of town today
it is very interesting
I am starting to get over my altitude sickness
feel so weak and nauseas at times
we go back to Beijing on 21st
really hard to get transport out of here (and too here)
Hopefully will fully recover from the altitude sickness tomorrow
19/7/07
18th July, 2007
Today we went to the Potala Palace but tickets had sold out.
Queued up for 3 hours for tickets tomorrow.
So yeah advice - buy tickets in advance.
Tibet is so popular - more people than any other destinations in China.
This morning we also circumambulated the Potala palace.
(we couldnt go in)
It is
surrounded by 100's of gold prayer wheels.
Buddhists walk around spinning the wheels around.
If you don't know these prayer wheels have Tibetan writing on them.
This writing is chants - like om made pame hung. etc etc
Some people walk around chanting. Some carry beads
and count the amount of chants they do. It is
quite relaxing way of meditating. I haven't been doing it
but have done in the past.
We walk around the Potala palace in a clockwise direction.
There are stupas here too. Stupas symbolise the enlightened
mind. They are white and bell shaped. I think inside they
have precious things such as chants etc.
We circumambulated 3 stupas once.
(this is supposed to increase your good karma!)
People were lighting fires also.
People dress really interesting.
Woman have long dark black plaits and they
weave in coloured wool into their plait.
They look quite lady like. Wrap around long dress
maybe in dark purple silk. They wear a silk
vertical stripey apron. A white wide brimmed hat.
The dresses are long sleaved.
They kind of look like Native Americans.
Many men and other people wear cowboy hats.
They may wear a cream long sleaved shirt.
and a light brown suede vest. Maybe a brown
silk scarf crossing across their chest diagnoally.
Some have long black plaits.
The people look very dignified. and wear certain
types of jewelery. a big black bead with white patters.
gold ring which looks like 6 gold rings on the one finger.
I find the people interesting.
But they find John and I more interesting and unusal.
People look at us more than we look at them.
I could get some great photos but it seems too invasive.
So we headed to the Dalai Lamas Summer Palace.
Called Nabilinku (or something)
It was in expansive grounds. Really beautiful white-washed buildings.
The sky is clear and blue. It is a slightly deeper shade of blue than in Australia.
Inside many of the temples you could not take photos.
They temples were coloured red,blue, orange and yellow.
The walls painted, silk hangings, paintings.
Many details in paintings or small buddhas, flowers etc.
You could tell you were walking into somewhere
very old. At one stage my mouth dropped open.
Found a courtyard with thousands of Tibetan prayer flags.
Many white cloth hung in door ways with navy Tibetan knot.
One temple for Sakymuni Buddha, one for Green Tara
another for Chenrezig.
So Potala palace tomorrow
Have been reading about it. The past Dalai Lamas
are burried there. well not burried
but they made giant gold stupas out of there remains.
The rooms are full of gold and precious stones.
I like Tibet but don't let your imagination go too wild.
Often there are people blasting out techno music.
Also in the temples today the attendants just were so
noisy. Im really missing the Buddhist temples in Australia.
I meditated this morning and my mediation was just as good
as anywhere else. --- of course -- but I thought just maybe
being in Tibet might somehow have good vibes.
I am glad I came here, I think it was worth it but
its not very peaceful. It is very beautiful.
Plus I get the impression that Australian Buddhists are
more serious than Tibetans in some ways.
Like many people here are probably buddhists by default
because they were born in a buddhist place.
Like people who say "of course we are Christian"
but seem to have no idea what that means.
Anyway there are some hard core praying and
chanting buddhists around too.
Okay betta go. Still feeling that High Altitude Sickness
nausea, chest pain, shortness of breath, dizzyness,
confusion, headache. John has bad chest pains.
PHOTOS OF TIBET
POTALA PALACE
This morning we went to the Jokhang Temple.
I was really disapointed. It was very crowded and people were noisy.
Ticket collectors were noisy, individuals were noisy, monks were noisy and I thought it was really run down.
Lucky I understand some of the symbolism so its interesting to tell John.
I miss temples in Australia. Although some of the ones here are really special. I just think people
should be a bit more respectful in a spiritual/religious place.
Im suffering from altitude sickness so i think that makes me more sensitive to noise.
Then I went to the Potala Palace. This is were all the remains of the past Dalai Lama's are. They used to live there. It used to be the political and spiritual heart of Tibet.
It was spoilt for me due to noisy tour guides shouting - then talking on their mobile. nosiy guards, noisy monks. at one stage i saw something really special. at this particularly place - the heart of the potala palace a guard was playing Chinese pop music loudly on his mobile phone! i blocked my ears.
I tried to go slower or faster to get away from tour groups but was unlucky. Got a migraine.
However, I saw some really cool 3d mandalas. i saw some paintings representing the different stages of rebirth. there were lots of seats with the robes of the past dalai lamas. also saw the usual tara, chenrezig, sakymuni. some really excellent old painitngs on the wall telling intricate stories of monks and buddhas. also my mouth dropped open when i saw the words
'lam rim'. The lam rim means the lamp and this is the most important thing to study on the path to enlightenment. I read part of it ages ago in Noosa (not the whole lot). I could really understand it and it was really powerful when I was staying in a Buddhist nunnery in Noosa. however, I took it to Sydney and could no longer get it.
So yeah I think this sign signalling the Lam Rim meant that the original Lam Rim was stored there so that was pretty special.
Right opposite that was a big chair with an armed guard wearing khaki and red. This chair used to be were the current Dalai Lama would sit. This used to be the political and spiritual centre of Tibet.
21/7/07
Its my last 2 hours in Lhasa and boy and I glad
Beijing is much more peaceful and quiet
Never thoughte I would decribe BJ as Peaceful
I am sick of Techno and loud music. In shops on phones, in buses, in monastrys
Tibet is the Gold Coast of China
Plus I think hight altitude scikenewss makes me cranky and eveyrttihing sounds louder
I am sicke of the polutions, traffice, begars, feeling out of breath, honking horns.
I think that when we reaturn to a normal altidue we will feel as fit as a fiddle.
yesterday we went to namestoako lake.. yeah its big and blue and quite beatutiful.
but it was just a lake. one of the few places we are permiitted to go in tibet.
it took 4 hours drive there and back and we spnt one hour there. beatuiful countryseide though with snow capped peaks, green grass, Tibetan houses, interesting people on the road. bought my mum a chenrezig stature and my niece an amber bracelet.
anyway will prob write when i get back to beijing.
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